Bhotta's Tears: Book Two of the Black Bead Chronicles (23 page)

“You can’t believe her, surely,” laughed Sam nervously. “It is merely trickery, like the back alley fortune tellers, trained to repeat generalities and make them sound like truth.”

Cheobawn looked up into his face, confused by his betrayal. He did not truly believe what he was saying but the words still hurt.

“So, little witch,” purred Bohea. “What are we supposed to do with you? If I slit your throat and left you for the scavengers,
would your people go home and leave us in peace?”

Sam cursed, pulling her roughly away, shoving her behind him.

“Stop it! Wait, wait,” he said, his voice tight with desperation. “Garro is right. She is worth more than all our lives put together. I can find a buyer for her among my people but she must be alive and whole.”

“More lies, rich boy?” Bohea asked, rising to his feet. “Why do I get the feeling I can’t trust you?”

Sam’s ambient became streaked with caution and fear. Bohea was a man to be feared, that much was apparent, but he had killed other things besides Old Father Bhotta and a small duff pig to convince Sam of that. Sam had unspeakable things hidden in his mind. Cheobawn did not pry deeper.

“No, I am telling the truth,” Sam said, his words racing themselves out of his mouth, hoping to keep Bohea from his throat. “She would be like an ace up the sleeve. No. More than that. She would be like the omega tile in a game of Stones, turning all the other tiles on the board into your own. She would tip the scale in the games of power played on the highest levels. Market it right, put the word out in the right circles, and people will gut each other to get an invitation to the auction. She wouldn’t even have to really be a witch. Bringing her down out of the Highlands, people would believe it, no matter what, and you would still have the power to mess with their minds. My father would help. He knows …“ Sam rattled on.

Cheobawn let go of Sam. The things coming out his ambient were painful and unpleasant to witness. She needed a little distance. She sidled away and found a smooth spot on the nearby log. Crawling on top of it, she sat down. She needed to think. She needed to sort out all the confusing things she only half understood. She watched Bohea as he stood listening to Sam, his arms crossed over his chest.

Sam had started out thinking he was Alpha of this Pack but somehow the Bohea had usurped his position. Had he done it through sheer force of will? For some reason, Bohea reminded Cheobawn of Mora. Perhaps it was the clever way he manipulated his Pack of two, herding them so that they were always going in the direction he wanted. Garro and Sam were like two horribly mismatched fenelk, trying to pull a wagon every which way but down the middle of the trail. Understanding his motives a little better, she lost some of her fear. She was not afraid of dangerous and powerful things, having been raised inside the Coven’s hard heart.

Was this why she was here? To serve Bohea’s needs? Did Bohea need an Ear? Bear and Star Woman circled the bonfire, restless but silent, their anticipation quivering in the air like an impending thunderstorm. Neither seemed willing to reveal more than they already had. She wrinkled her nose at them and looked back at the man with the strange sparkly skin.

“Will you take me with you, then?” she asked Bohea curiously. “I could become your apprentice. You could teach me the way of the loud weapons. I could learn to grow cold inside so that I might wield them as you do.”

Sam choked back a curse, his dismay bleeding into the ambient. She had wounded his heart though she was not really sure how.

“Why would I do that?” Bohea asked after a long, considered pause.

“It would be fair exchange. I would learn and you would be safe, protected from anything that might want to harm you.”

“I have no use for mewling children,” the Star Man said.

“Test me. Give me back my knife. I will show you that I know how to fight,” Cheobawn said, jumping to her feet. She said it casually, calmly, meeting the suspicion in those black eyes with innocent intent.

Bohea smiled a smile that did not quite reach into those cold eyes.

“You can’t … you cannot think to take her off-planet,” Sam protested looking frantically between the two of them. “She belongs here, on this planet, with her own kind.”

Bohea pinned Sam with those deadly black eyes. The ambient became brittle and cold. Cheobawn shivered. She wanted to build a wall between her and the ugliness in Bohea’s mind, but she dare not for fear of missing a cue that just might save her life.

“What kind might that might be, Mr. Wheelwright? I have walked about in your cities, remember. I have seen with my own eyes what passes for civilization on this rock. Criminals run your government, thugs and murderers enforce your laws, and black marketeers and thieves pass themselves off as gentry. Trust me, no matter how many silk shirts and fur collars you put on a pig, it is still a pig. Perhaps it is not my kind you find so objectionable. You have no intention of selling her, do you? You want to keep her all to yourself.”

“Better me than with a Spacer,” Sam spat, his anger overcoming good sense. “Your kind are a plague upon every place you light. You bring nothing but death and betrayal. You do no honest work yet you look down on ordinary folk who must work hard for every credit.”

“Ironic, coming from the spoiled little rich boy living an idle life supported by a CPC war pension and his father’s sufferance.”

“Leave my father out of this,” the boy seethed, his hand gone into fist. Bohea grew still, his gaze pinning the boy in place. Sam flinched, looking away. He shook his head angrily, “I should have never brought you up the cliffs.”

“Truer words, boy, truer words. As unpleasant as this moment of clarity is, it has come too late,” Bohea said, amused. “What can you do? Go back and admit your guilt? The Ruling Council would have you executed for breaking the treaty that protects this place. Even your father’s wealth would not save you. No. I think not. You will finish what you started and take your cut when we are through. Be content, knowing I will make you very wealthy and learn to keep your mouth shut.”

Bohea turned his back on Sam, a very brave thing to do after making him so angry. The elder man returned to his seat near the hollow weapon and picked up the box he had been playing with before the duff pig had interrupted him. He held it up in front of his chest, tipped it a bit, and studied its blank surface.

Cheobawn looked from Bohea to Sam and back again, wondering if the debate was over. Most of what they had argued about escaped her understanding but what she did know was that the things Bohea said hurt Sam.

She had a new word. Spacer.

She watched Sam’s shoulders sink and his face turn pale. He turned and tottered over to the log, collapsing onto it to sit and stare at his feet. She sat down beside him.

“It will be OK,” she said, “I will ask Bear Under the Mountain to keep you safe. He owes me a favor,” she said, patting his hand.

Sam jerked his hand away and looked at her, his scorn obvious.

“I do not believe in your gods,” he hissed. Cheobawn shrugged.

“That’s alright. Nobody else does either. Except Herd Mother. But she is a bennelk and cannot talk to tell you so.”

Bohea threw back his head and howled with laughter, whether from her words or the odd look on Sam’s face, she could not tell.

Sam leapt to his feet and stalked away, the skin on the back of his neck scarlet.

“You should not mess around with his head like that. It only confuses him,” Bohea said, his gloved fingers twiddling with a knob on his box, an act made all the more remarkable when you considered that the box was as smooth as glass and had no knobs. She watched his fingers, wondering at the strange insanity that infected Lowlanders and Spacers alike.

“How else can I get him to learn anything,” she said, with a shrug. She turned her head to watch Sam, unconsciously kicking her bare heels against the side of the log. The boy threw himself down on the stream bank and plunged his head under the water.

“Are you trying to teach me things as well, here inside my head?”

Something in his tone made her turn and give him her full attention. The words had failed her again. She met his level gaze, listening hard to what he was asking. Cheobawn shook her head, denying whatever it was that he accused her of.

“You are my teacher, Father. He is a boy. There is still room in his head for new things.” she said, trying not to offend him.

Bohea snorted, having none of her flattery nor her obfuscation. He went back to playing with his box.

Garro came back into the circle of light, his arms full of green branches. Throwing them down by the fire, he pulled out his knife and begin lopping off the small branches from the main canes.

Sam returned to the fire pit, his hair dripping. He handed her a cup full to the top with water from the creek. Grateful, she took it and drank it down to the last drop before handing the cup back. He twisted the cup and it collapsed flat which she thought immensely clever. She watched the flat cup disappear into a pocket. She wanted to ask Sam to let her play with it but did not. It was probably too soon to be asking favors.

“Are you hungry?” Sam asked.

She turned her head. He held out a lump of shiny metal.

“It occurred to me that you probably haven’t eaten since you left home. Were you watching us because you were hungry? Go on, take it. It will tide you over until the meat is cooked.”

“We don’t have enough supplies to feed every starving puppy you happen across,” yelled Garro as he set a bark platter down on the damp sand near the fire. A small mountain of raw bhotta flesh was piled in the center of the shallow depression. He started skewering the meat on his green canes. Sam ignored him.

“Do not eat Old Father Bhotta. It will kill you,” she cautioned them, as she took what Sam offered. She turned it over in her hands, curious. It was not metal as she had first thought. The shininess turned out to be a strange material that was somehow not paper or plastic or metal but carried the qualities of all of them. The paper was covered with words that did not make a lot of sense. She squeezed it gently. The metal paper was a wrapping. It contained a soft lump of something else inside. The noisy paper crinkled merrily under her fingers. What ever it was, the wrapping said it was
New and Improved, Now with more Vitamins!
She wondered what a vitamin was and why it was so exciting.
 

“Who is Old Father Bhotta?” Sam asked, his question pulling her out of her revery. Cheobawn looked up from the strange thing in her hand and pointed at the body of the bhotta.

“You have taken part of Bear’s mind. He is not pleased with you. Old Father held the memories of the world in his heart and now they are gone, drained into the ground with his blood. You will die if you eat him.”

Sam looked confused. He glanced up at Bohea for help.

“Don’t look at me. You’re the anthropology student,” Bohea said, laughing.

“It is not unusual for primitive peoples to have animistic religions. The lizard must represent a deity,” Sam ventured. “One does not eat one’s god for fear of offending it.”

Cheobawn scowled at both of them. How much clearer did she have to be? She waited, looking from Bohea to Sam and then over to Garro, expecting at least one of them to react to her news. Garro, who was busy jamming the green canes into the soft ground at the edge of the bonfire, being careful to get just the right angle for slow roasting, did not look up.

Honestly, did she have to push things into their minds every time she needed them to hear what she was saying?

“Here, let me help you with that,” Sam said, taking the metal coated object out of her hands to tear at the wrapping with his teeth. He peeled it back a little more and then presented it to her. She stared at it. It looked like something that came out of the back end of a treebear. Being careful to touch only the wrapper, she put out her hand and took it gingerly. Cheobawn looked up uncertainly. Sam nodded, his expression expectant. He even made eating motions.

“It’s food. You eat it,” he said with a smile. She put her nose near it and sniffed tentatively. Whatever vitamins were, they smelled awful. To please Sam, she took a small nibble and then swallowed quickly without chewing. Even with that precaution, an unpleasant aftertaste lingered on her tongue. She looked around for anything that resembled a waterskin but found nothing. Would it be terribly rude to run over to the stream and drink until the taste left her mouth? Probably. Worse still, she was sitting there with the noxious lump in her hand without a clue as how to politely dispose of it.

Sam took pity on her.

“Not your cup of tea, eh?” he asked, taking it back and tossing it over his shoulder into the fire. Cheobawn watched it curl and smoke and then burst into flame. She sighed. She would have liked to keep the wrapper.

Cheobawn remembered that she had a tin of dried fruit in one of her pockets. She reached for it, thinking that if she offered Sam something of her own he would not be offended by her rudeness.

Without a hint of warning, Bohea reacted. One moment he was sitting on the log, the next, he was standing over her, having crossed the distance between them so fast it seemed as if his body flowed like water. She squeaked in surprise and tried to jerk away but it was already too late. He had her wrists locked so tightly in his gloved fists they instantly turned numb.

“This may be a stupid question but did either one of you think to pat her down?” he drawled casually. Sam cast a guilty look her way. Garro looked up from his cooking and just snorted in disgust. “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of,” Bohea said with a tired sigh. “Sam, if you would be so kind, hold her still for me.”

Sam took Cheobawn’s forearms in his hands and pulled her arms back away from her body. She allowed this, not attempting to break out of the hold, knowing they were concerned but about what she did not quite know. The older man thought she posed a threat of some sort. She could feel it in the ambient. Cheobawn decided she would submit if it made their minds rest easier. Bohea, his hard eyes looking everywhere but directly into her eyes, ran his fingers through her curls and behind her ears.